As I previously noted on
The
2018 Ranked Choice Voting Election in Maine's Congressional District No.
2 over at Fruits and
Votes, the cast vote record data published by Maine's Secretary of State
indicates 140,325 of 289,624 voters casting a valid first preference in the
election gave valid rankings to at least two different candidates. However,
that data also allows a tally of the second preferences in these ballots,
cross-tabulated by first preference in the table below.

Candidate
Names

First Preference

Second
Preference
Total

Bond

Golden

Hoar

Poliquin

Bond, Tiffany L.

-

53,118

2,621

15,211

70,950

DEM Golden, Jared F.

4,835

-

1,203

9,315

15,353

Hoar, William R.S.

5,639

18,344

-

19,429

43,412

REP Poliquin, Bruce

1,632

8,089

889

-

10,610

Total

12,106

79,551

4,713

43,955

140,325

Interestingly enough, one or other of the two independent candidates emerged
as the second choice of all voters who indicated a valid second preference,
irrespective of their first preference choice. A plurality of Poliquin and
Bond first preference voters chose Hoar, while a majority of voters selecting
Golden or Hoar as their first preference went for Bond, who obtained the
largest overall second preference total. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized
that the second preferences of Poliquin and Golden voters had no bearing
on the election outcome, which was determined by the elimination of independent
candidates Bond and Hoar after the first preference count, and the addition
of their second preferences to the first preference votes cast for continuing
candidates Golden and Poliquin, including 6,615 of the 8,260 ballots with
first and second preferences for the two independents plus valid third preferences
for Golden or Poliquin.

An overwhelming majority of voters indicating valid preferences for at least
two different candidates - 136,895 out of 140,325, or 97.6% - cast valid
first and second rankings. Of the remaining 3,430 ballots, a total of 2,604
had valid first rankings, an undervote (that is, blank) second ranking, and
a valid third ranking for another candidate. Following Maine's RCV counting
rules, single skipped rankings were ignored, and the third ranking was counted
as the second preference; the same logic was applied to 259 ballots with
an undervote on the first ranking, but valid preferences for different candidates
in the second and third rankings (which were counted as first and second
preferences).